


meeting // distance // reunion

by kythen



Series: SASO2017 Bonus Round Fills [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M, SASO2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 19:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11168709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kythen/pseuds/kythen
Summary: The boy next door plays volleyball.





	meeting // distance // reunion

**Author's Note:**

> > _Prompt: au where hinata and kageyama grew up next door to each other_   
> 

The boy next door plays volleyball.  
  
That is weird because all the kids in the neighbourhood play baseball and Shouyou plays baseball, which means there isn't anyone to play volleyball with. It must be boring, playing by yourself. He wonders what volleyball is like.  
  
He wonders what volleyball _is_.  
  
So he goes looking for the boy next door one day, peeking through the bars in their gate with his baseball bat and mitt in hand. The garden is empty but he hears a _whump, thump, whump_ somewhere from the house which must mean that someone is in.  
  
"Hello?" Shouyou shouts and the _whump, thump, whump_ continues. "Hellooooo!"  
  
"My mom's not in," comes a voice from the house.  
  
Shouyou squints past the side of the house, pressing his face to the gate to see round the corner. He sees a boy his age—the boy next door—scowling at him with a brightly coloured ball in hand.  
  
"Can I come in?" Shouyou asks.  
  
"What for?"  
  
"I heard that you play volleyball."  
  
The boy next door seems to brighten up, just the slightest. "Do you play?"  
  
"I don't know what that is."  
  
"Oh." The boy's face falls. He turns away from Shouyou and starts tossing the ball up in the air, bouncing it back up on his hands with his arms stretched out above him.  
  
"What are you doing? Is that volleyball?" Hinata asks, squashing his face against the bars to see.  
  
"I'm learning how to set," says the boy, his face scrunched in concentration. "I want to be a setter."  
  
"What's that?"  
  
The ball lands smack on the boy's face and Shouyou bursts out in laughter at the image it makes. When the boy looks over at Shouyou, his scowl is back in place, more ferocious than ever.  
  
"You don't even know what a setter is?" the boy asks him, aghast.  
  
"I told you. I don't know what volleyball is."  
  
The boy's eyebrows furrow. Shouyou can see a red mark forming right in the centre of his forehead where the ball had smacked into his face and he fights back the laughter bubbling up in him again.  
  
The boy picks the ball up from the ground and marches over to the gate. Shouyou falls back, ready to run if the boy wants to pick a fight. Then the boy unlatches the gate and pulls it open, his mouth still downturned in a frown as he says, "I can't believe you don't know what _volleyball_ is. Get in here."  
  
Shouyou has his hands raised defensively and he asks warily, "What, why?"  
  
"Because I'm going to show you what it is, dumbass," the boy says and Shouyou scowls at the name. "My mom keeps videos."  
  
"Don't call me dumbass," Shouyou tells him hotly. "My name is Shouyou."  
  
"Okay," the boy says, turning to lead the way to the house.  
  
"And what's your name?" Shouyou asks, running up alongside him.  
  
"Tobio," the boy says and Shouyou finally has a name to call the boy next door.

  
\---

  
"You dumbass! Didn't I show you the video? You put your hands like this when you receive the ball."  
  
"Why can't I just catch the ball? Volleyball hurts my arms."  
  
"Because that's not how volleyball goes."  
  
"How is volleyball even fun?"  
  
"It's because you're not making the ball go _pah_ and _whoosh_ like what they do in the videos."  
  
"They're grown-ups. That's why the ball goes all _fwum_ for them."  
  
"You don't get it, dumbass!"  
  
"It's _Shouyou_!"

  
\---

  
The first time Tobio sets the ball and Shouyou slams it across their makeshift net with a clean hit to the palm, Shouyou finally gets what Tobio means.

  
\---

  
He is walking through the market street, wheeling along his bicycle on his way back from a session of baseball with Izumi and Kouji when he sees a flash out of the corner of his eye. It looks a lot like the volleyball videos Tobio has been showing him and Shouyou stops before the television screen in a shop to watch for a bit.  
  
It only takes a second, no, a fraction of a second for the ball on the screen to travel from the spiker's palm and straight onto the floor. The crowd screams and it is as if Shouyou screams with them because he suddenly finds himself breathless, a shock running through his entire body, starting from the tips of his fingers and flowing down to his feet.  
  
That number 10 had _flown_.

  
\---

  
That number 10 is called the Small Giant and of course Tobio knows about him. He went to Karasuno. He had fought in the Nationals. But Tobio's interest lies in his setter, not the Small Giant.  
  
Shouyou visits Tobio twice as much now, learning to catch the ball on his forearms instead of with his hands and to slam a spike across the net. He tells Tobio that he wants to go to Karasuno. He wants to be just like the Small Giant.  
  
Tobio doesn't laugh at him or frown like he usually does. He just nods and sets the ball back to Shouyou.

  
\---

  
Tobio goes to Kitagawa Daiichi and Shouyou doesn't. Shouyou goes to Yukigaoka with Izumi and Kouji and when he looks for a volleyball club to join, there is none.  
  
Tobio moves and Shouyou doesn't. He doesn't get to see him again for a year, then two, and then suddenly in the summer of his third year, they meet face-to-face across the net at the Junior High Athletics Meet.  
  
Tobio wins and Shouyou... doesn't. But neither of them are happy when they face each other across the net.  
  
"What have you been doing all these years, you dumbass?" Tobio yells at him, harsher than he has ever sounded all those years ago.  
  
It takes another teammate to drag Tobio away from the net and Shouyou watches him go, the blood pounding distantly in his ears. His nerves are still buzzing from the game, frustration in every inch of his body from not being able to move as he wanted, to run, jump, spike as he wanted. Tobio is disappointed in him but he isn't the only one who is.  
  
Shouyou runs, his legs finding their way out of the gym, weaving past the different teams here to try their luck at a chance at standing on top. Maybe Tobio would have found a way to improve himself if he had been in Shouyou's place. Maybe Tobio would have been able to stand as an one-man army all by himself against the likes of Kitagawa Daiichi if he had been on this side of the net. Maybe Shouyou would have become the best player with Tobio by his side.  
  
"Tobio!" Shouyou catches sight of him and his team leaving the venue, screeching to a stop as Tobio turns to look at him. His eyebrows are furrowed, the frown on his face deepening as he sees Shouyou standing there at the top of the stairs.  
  
He has never seen Tobio from this angle, from way up high. This must be what the Small Giant sees whenever he flies high, out of everyone else's reach. Maybe this is what Tobio sees when he plays at a level so much higher than everyone else around him. But it must get lonely, standing at the top by yourself, playing volleyball by yourself.  
  
"I'm not going to lose again," Shouyou declares, angry tears welling up in his eyes as he looks straight down at Tobio. "I'm going to Karasuno."

  
\---

"It's about time, dumbass," Tobio says to him as Shouyou throws open the doors to the gym and breathes in the familiar scent of wood, sports equipment, and air salonpas.  
  
"It's Shouyou, _dumbass_ ," Shouyou mimics him, complete with the furrowed brows and frown, as he takes up the spot right across from him on court.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Find me here: [tumblr](http://kythen.tumblr.com) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/catcrowcalls)


End file.
